


The Day Phil Coulson Stumbled

by SylvanWitch



Series: Proving the Exception [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: After the Third Bond fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maria Hill never thought she'd see the day that Phil Coulson stumbled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day Phil Coulson Stumbled

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place after the Third Bond has been consummated in my "Proving the Exception" 'verse. You don't have to have read that series to understand this story, but it will probably help.

The day Phil Coulson stumbled, there was no one there to see it but Hill, who’d been walking beside him tapping furiously at her tablet, issuing text orders as they planned the next operation.

 

They were deep in the bowels of SHIELD, surrounded by concrete walls and steel doors.  The floor was sealed concrete, dull grey and smooth.  There was nothing he could have tripped over, even if Agent Coulson were known for clumsiness.

  
He was not.

 

Coulson caught his balance and his breath, and Hill watched as he visibly realigned his worldview with a minute shake of his head and a certain settling of his shoulders.

 

His words flowed uninterrupted by the hitch in his step, but Hill stopped nonetheless.

 

“Barton’s down,” Coulson offered without looking at her.  He’d stopped a pace ahead of her.  His eyes were fixed on the right angle turn in the corridor ahead of them, as if he was expecting someone to come at them.

 

Though he couldn’t have seen the way her lips tightened, couldn’t have known a shadow had dropped across her eyes, Phil said, “Problem, Agent Hill?”

 

“No,” she lied.  It would have been effective if it weren’t for the nature of their work.  

 

Coulson pivoted precisely and came to rest, crossing his hands in front of his trouser placket, the perfect image of disciplined patience.   His posture and expression suggested he would wait like that all day.

 

Hill sighed and sent off the last instruction, then tapped once more to mute the device.

 

“He makes you weak.”

 

Maria could count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of people who could get away with saying such a thing to him.  He inhaled a flash of anger, exhaled resignation.  She watched the change overtake him; she’d known him a long time.

 

Phil shook his head, rueful quirk of his lip anticipating the gentleness of his words.  “He makes me stronger, Hill.  He—.”

 

“If you say ‘completes me,’ I’m going to tase you, Phil,” Maria interrupted.  There was no humor at all in her tone or on her face.

 

Phil made an impatient sound, shook his head.  The fingers of his right hand curled where they clasped over his left.  Few others would have noticed these signs of his anger, and of those few, none would have ignored the warning they offered.

 

Hill put up the hand not holding the tablet, palm vertical, like she was stopping traffic.  “I’m—,” but she couldn’t say ‘sorry.’  She wouldn’t apologize for her feelings, which were, she believed, borne out by observation.

 

“You never would have stumbled before,” she pointed out.

 

Phil raised one shoulder in a casual shrug that was belied by the ticking of a muscle in his jaw.  “Before, I’d never have known Clint was injured until I got the report.”

 

Hill took a breath and opened her mouth to retort, but Phil went on:  “I might not have felt his pain then, either, like I do now, but neither would I have been able to channel strength to him to keep him conscious so that he could instruct the team of his whereabouts and warn the pilot of the rescue chopper about the trajectory of incoming hostile fire.  Which is what Clint’s doing at the moment.  On another continent.  It’s dusk there, hot.  The building where he’s been shot is exposed to the desert wind.  He’s got dust on his tongue, and—”

 

“Okay,” Hill said, brusquely, hand up again, this time in protest.  “I get the point.”

 

“Do you?” Phil asked softly, considering her.  “I wonder.”

 

The silence of years stretched between them.  He waited.

 

“I don’t like to see you in pain,” she said at last, tone confessional, as if it were some great sin to reveal her feelings for him.  

 

“Clint isn’t causing this pain, Maria,” Phil answered, closing the space between them but stopping short of reaching out to her.  “And what pain I suffer is worth it.  Worth everything.”

 

Maria took in the way Phil’s eyes shone with the banked fire of conviction, close enough to zeal that it made her uncomfortable.  Examining the source of her discomfort, she skirted dangerously close to recognizing her loneliness, which she shoved away with a deflective smirk and a shrug of her own.

 

“Spare me the dirty details, please.”  She mock-shuddered, pulling on a horrified mask.

 

“You still don’t approve,” he observed, but there was something in his voice that suggested his regret was tempered by understanding.  She hated having put that tone there; they’d been friends for more than a decade.

 

Gathering her courage, Maria captured Phil’s gaze.  “If he makes you happy, then I’m happy for you, Phil.”  She wanted to mean it.

 

He smiled, a little sadly, as if he could sense her reservations.  “I appreciate that you’re trying, Maria,” he answered, reaching out to touch the hand clutched around her silent tablet.  “Thank you.”

 

She shook her head.  “You shouldn’t have to thank me.”

 

“No, I shouldn’t,” he answered, turning to face back toward their destination, shoulders squaring, Agent Coulson overcoming Phil in the blink of an eye.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said then, at last, meaning it.

 

“Status of Caracas?” Coulson asked, starting to walk.

 

Hill took a moment to notice the steadiness of his step, the unbroken stride indicating nothing of what was happening inside of him.

 

Surrendering to a mystery she would never fully grasp, aware that some part of it terrified her even as it drew her toward him, toward the both of them, Agent Hill answered Agent Coulson as six thousand miles away, Clint Barton bled.

 


End file.
